Monday, January 30, 2017

"Pictish Nation" c. 2003 F. Lennox Campello Charcoal on Paper 15x41 inches
In a private collection in New York City

Over a decade ago, I had a solo show at the original Fraser Gallery in Georgetown in which I focused all my work on my interest on the original people of Scotland before the Celts arrived from Spain (via Ireland). The show was titled Pictish Nation and was widely reviewed by multiple local newspapers (ahhh... the halcyon days of DMV mainstream media reviews, see some of them here, and here, and here...).

"This legion, which curbs the savage Scot and studies the designs marked with iron on the face of the dying Pict,"
are the written words of the Roman poet Claudian that give the only
insight as to the name given by Rome to the untamed Britannic tribes
living North of Hadrian's Walls and one of history's nearly forgotten
Dark Ages people: The Picts.

Perhaps the greatest mystery of Scottish or even European history is
the people who once inhabited the lands north of Roman England, as far
north as the Shetlands. Who were these fiercely independent people?
Where did the come from? Which language did they speak? What did they
call themselves? We first hear of them in the third century from a Roman
writer in Spain, who describes their fierceness and battle skills of
both men and women. The writer Eumenius, writes about them 200 years
after Rome has been in Britain, and the name associated with the Pict is
forever coined. To this day, we do not know if this is truly as in
"pictus" (the Latin for "painted") or a Latin form of a native name.
Because of the isolation of northern Scotland, history yields little,
and the Roman Empire's expeditions into the north ended in little gains.

"We, the most distant dwellers upon the earth, the last of the
free, have been shielded...by our remoteness and by the obscurity which
has shrouded our name...Beyond us lies no nation, nothing but waves and
rocks"...The above words by the Pictish chief Calgacus are recorded
by the Roman enemy in the words of Tacitus and are a perfect example of
the obscurity and legendary status held by the Picts almost 2,000 years
ago.

In "Pictish Nation," I married my
interest in history (I am one of the world's earliest and leading Pictologists) with art. The show consisted of two dozen charcoal drawings
that interpreted and delivered my vision of how Pictish men and
women, and their tattooed bodies, may have appeared.

Borrowing from the designs in the unique Pictish standing stones that
dot the Scottish countryside, I re-created, for the first time in
nearly 1200 years (The Picts ceased to exist as an independent people
in 845 AD, when Kenneth MacAlpin, Scottish by father and Pictish by
Mother, usurped the throne of the Picts and Scots and proceeded to erase
all traces of Pictish culture from Scotland), the unique Pictish
designs of animals, objects and imaginary beasts.

Most of the show sold, and it completely sold out over the years, except for the key central piece (Pictish Nation depicted above). I kept this work for my own, and in 2004 I had Old Town Editions in Alexandria do a small Gyclee edition of 10 reproductions of the work - all of which also sold.